Cloud provider comparison with a growing business perspective

Sammanfattning: As technology becomes increasingly embedded in our daily lives, the demand for computational power is on the rise. Sometimes, the necessary calculations can be performed within the device itself, but often, they need to be processed remotely. This is where the role of cloud providers comes into play, steadily growing to meet the demand. With a multitude of providers available, each offering their own unique blend of services, costs, availability, and functionality, choosing the right one can be daunting. Each provider has its own advantages and drawbacks, making them more suitable for specific use scenarios. Growing businesses might find it challenging to select the best cloud provider due to the wide range of offerings. Decisions revolve around factors such as costs, scalability, and performance implications. This study examines a case where a transition was made from the cloud provider Heroku to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and their respective offerings. The moved infrastructure included a database, back-end service, and front-end service, with the last two operating as Docker-compiled containers. To investigate the differences, minor modifications were made to the existing infrastructure to make it compatible with AWS. Due to the similarities between the two systems, we could perform tests in 7 categories such as ”Time to first byte” and ”Time to interactive”. The data was derived using the performance monitoring software Google lighthouse. Non-app-specific data, like service availability and costs, were collected directly from the providers. The findings suggest that performance differences between Heroku and AWS were marginal. The cost data indicates Heroku as a pricier option at present. Despite AWS being cheaper it provides more features and customisation, it also offers a more advantageous cost model for future company growth and system expansion. If there was more time available for the study it would also be of interest to see how other providers compared to the two examined in the study.